For decades, debate over whether to limit global population growth was stifled or ignored, branded as immoral and a return to heartless Malthusian logic.

But the potential impact on climate change of a planet teaming with up to 10 billion souls has again forced the issue into the open ahead of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December.

In a sign of change, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has declared that braking the rise in Earth’s population would be a major contribution to fighting greenhouse gases.

“Slower population growth … would help build social resilience to climate change’s impacts and would contribute to a reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in the future,” the agency said in report in November.

If, by 2050, Earth’s population stood at eight billion rather than nine billion, that would save between one and two gigatonnes of carbon per year, buying precious time for cleaner technology and other policies, its report said.

That figure is comparable to savings in emissions by 2050 if all new buildings were constructed to the highest energy-efficiency standards and if two million one-gigawatt wind turbines were built to replace today’s coal-fired power plants.

The 104-page document is the first by a UN agency to address the climate-population link so explicitly.

It highlights the option of a gentle, voluntary decline in population expansion, thanks to access to contraception and empowerment of women.

In a slew of papers published in September by Britain’s Royal Society, University of California scientist Malcolm Potts pointed at the impact of an expected population rise in the United States, from 300 million today to between 450 million and 500 million in 2050.

“Every unintended birth prevented in the US will permit the rest of the world to breathe a little easier,” said Potts.

Quick Links

About

The Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability is dedicated to helping achieve slower population growth within a human right framework by addressing the unmet need for family planning. Learn more